Brian Dewan

Brian Dewan

"Brian Dewan" is an artist whose vision takes form equally well in many media, including art, music, audio-visual performances, decorative painting, furniture design, poetry and musical instrument design. He has produced two albums of songs and concertized extensively as a solo artist, as well as having performed in various collaborations and as a sideman. He lives in upstate New York.

His own music roughly breaks into two categories, vocal music and electronic music. His vocal music is of a sort that tends to reference folk music, hymns, century-old popular music and rock music. His two full length albums, "Brian Dewan Tells the Story" (1993, Bar None Records) and "The Operating Theatre" (1998, Instinct Records) find him in this mode. His songs often contemplate the nature of submission to authority, and often take the form of a tale. They are by turns humoristic and contemplative. In live performance, he most often accompanies his singing with an electric zither of his own invention, outfitted with eight humbucker pickups and 88 strings, sometimes piped through a leslie cabinet or guitar effects pedals. He also plays a variety of other instruments, including autoharp, or...